This ancestor is a fragment of a pop-eyed birdstone with notches on the top of its head, on its beak, back and around its right eye. It is made of a stone with a dark grey-brown colour, and with black lineations. This ancestor is distinct because it appears to have been intentionally broken at the neck and repurposed as a pendant with a perforation in its neck. Both sides of its neck show incised designs that were made prior the the fracture. Its right eye is circular and stemmed and presents traces of red residue. Its left eye is broken, leaving a raw edge on the otherwise smooth stone. The ancestor’s right eye presents a chip on the top of the eye. Scratches are present on the birdstone. Currently, this ancestor resides at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

The term birdstone is a legacy of earlier archaeological work and does not consider the full variety in shape and functionality these relatives may have had within Indigenous communities. We invite Great Lakes nations to help us improve our understanding of how to identify and name these relatives. Birdstones have been found and collected from various contexts including hearths inside houses, in fields, and burial contexts. To the best of our knowledge, none of the birdstones in GRASAC’s Knowledge Sharing Platform come from burial contexts.

It is difficult to know the cultural origin of this ancestor due to the unknown context of its collection, its age and the fact that birdstones have been found throughout the American northeast. It may have travelled long distances, making its origin unknown.

Information from this entry comes from the ROM's catalogue alongside Dr. Tiziana Gallo's research on Birdstones.